


For Adam

by twoofdiamonds



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoofdiamonds/pseuds/twoofdiamonds
Kudos: 1





	For Adam

My grandma, in her dotage, forgot that her mother was long dead.

"My mother's coming for me," she said to my own mum, quite matter of factly,

And then a moment later, "Oh no, my mother's dead isn't she."

But it wasn't so very sad: my grandma, even now, at 92, is an infallible optimist.

She was embarrassed perhaps to have forgotten, but she brushed it off.

I have learned so much from her: how to get by,

Her unlikely flame of optimism flares in my very blindest nights.

Her mother, who would have been my great grandma had she lived to know me, was always late.

She was many other things too: quiet, lovely; a little naive.

She was widowed too young on the brink a world war, mother of a wilful child.

They lived with her in-laws (people did then). 

I know aspects of her, in my own mother who is also lovely, and naive, and always late.

In my sister too, who 'has her mouth' and carries her name, as I carry Mum's.

I'm more wilful, but only because I learnt it.

I'm usually early, but only to combat my own mother's lateness; 

Decisive but only to make up for her indecision.

We push and pull, a sine wave through the generations, all the way down to you, my son.

May your temper be cooled by the ghost of your grandma's grandma.

She is more than forty years gone but now making a return:

In this alien millennium she is late as ever to collect her daughter.

Perhaps my own persistence can kindle a flame of hope in some future timid child.

And maybe there will come a day when you are old and confused, and believe I am still with you.

If that time comes, I hope I have given you reason to sound so confident:

I was always there for you too.

And I won't be late.


End file.
